


Bringing Balance

by yoomsthefool



Category: Kagerou Project
Genre: Also 0 intended shipping, Crossover, Gen, bc that's like the only main pairing in this series i'm relatively ok with, romance is NOT going to be a factor in this except like maybe harutaka, takes place in the Avatar universe but does not have any of the Avatar cast, this is an ATLA/Kagepro crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 04:00:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17635622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoomsthefool/pseuds/yoomsthefool
Summary: Four elements. Nine kids. A new journey begins.(A series of ficlets for my Kagerou Project/Avatar the Last Airbender AU that I thought up of with emyasmina & kanoshinkanoshinkanoshin on Tumblr.)





	Bringing Balance

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo~ I'm yoomsthefool aka yoomster on most social media platforms. Like said this is a series of ficlets, meaning that at the moment I don't really have a concise plot for this AU and might not think of one. I wrote this with the intention of just practicing writing, since I have other projects I want to do in the future.
> 
> Some context: This takes place roughly before the time period of Avatar Aang (who doesn't even exist in this AU anyway), so no Republic City nor wild technological advances caused by the Fire Nation War. Airbenders are alive and thriving in both the Eastern & Western temple, and the world is more and less still in balance despite the last Avatar passing away not very long ago.

The birds are chirping, creating a pleasant melody. A breeze brushes against him, and Kousuke sighs softly, his breath carried away by the wind.

The young disciples of the Western Air Temple were playing some game, a game of airbending that one had made up and the others were happily playing. A couple had reluctantly torn their gaze from their peers to offer him to join them, but he had politely declined.

He could hear their laughter among the breeze the brushes the Western Air Temple, and he sighs again.

He could have just gone with them, agreed and played with them. But he felt so out of place.

It’s been only a few months since he first joined the Western Air Temple, and, if things went well, he was expected to be here until he was an adult.

He felt so out of place. His heart pangs in his chest. He missed his family.

 _Don’t cry, Kousuke,_ he tells himself, then shakes his head. _Seto._ That’s how he referred to himself now, what the monks and nuns and other kids called him. It is his name now, always was, but this time it held a promise behind it.

A promise to meet again with his family.

The thought brings a faint, sad smile to his lips, and another breeze rushes by, blowing through his hair. He pulls his orange hood over his head, the garment also a gift from said family. It’s just a faint comfort in this unfamiliar land that he had been sent to, to hone his airbending.

He sighs again and brings his knees to his chest.

Generally, the sight of him alone would attract the attention of the monks and nuns, and he had become accustomed to them approaching him in concern. He assured them that he’s fine, that he’s just homesick, which is the truth. They nodded sympathetically, telling him that he can find a home here.

It’s not that he doesn’t have faith in them, really. But upon his decision to not become a monk, a decision that is unheard of in the Air Temples, it wasn’t surprising that some treated him differently. They glance at him with curiosity, almost disdain sometimes, but no one vocalized their concerns. They were too nice for that, after all.

 ~~Kousuke~~ Seto didn’t like how easy it was to read them. They were nice people. It was wrong of him to make assumptions just based on their facial expressions.

The reason for their absence was that Seto had hidden away to the edges of the Air Temples, somewhere secluded, and now his legs dangled over the ledge that had nothing but a seemingly endless drop below it.

 _Come on, Kousu--Seto…_ he thinks to himself. _Shuuya… No, Kano, would make fun of you if he saw you like this._

It’s only thoughts of his family, a family that he had for so little time yet meant the world of him, that get him to uncurl himself and stand up.

As sad as his thoughts are, the breeze is nice. He always enjoyed the breeze--it’s only natural, after all.

He gazes downward. The drop below him is undoubtedly deep, with faint shrouds of cloud and mist obscuring what lies underneath. Of course, he doesn’t feel a faint of fear as he allows himself to fall down head-first.

The air roars past him as he descends, and he allows his body to become one with gravity, eyes narrowed but focused. When the ground breaks through the clouds and starts approaching at increasing speeds, he twists his arms towards him before throwing them out at the surface. Wind instantly blasts alongside the direction of his arms and hits the ground with some force, and he squints against the gusts as they slow his descent.

He hovers a few feet over the ground for only a second before landing on his feet. He looks up, and the Air Temples are gone, the cliff they reside on engulfed by clouds.

He shakes his head and starts walking.

This is a bad habit of his, leaving the Air Temples on his own without warning, but it gives him a lot more peace of mind than meditating. He allows his thoughts to filter out, his breathing even and steady as he wanders beneath a canopy of trees and allows himself to be enveloped by nature.

The sound of birdsong is much clearer here, and he smiles.

He doesn’t feel like going back, not at all, so he continues walking. And walking. His mind become blank, and he just allows himself to _breathe_ as his foots take him to wherever.

Perhaps not the best idea, really.

“... Where am I?” he finally murmurs to himself, blinking. He’s taking a break in a small clearing, perched on a low-hanging branch and idly eating some berries he found. The berries are sweet and tart, sparking some energy in his brain as he looks around.

Just nature greets him. The clearing is beautiful but empty.

“....... I’m lost, aren’t I?” he muses.

Not really. If he really needed to, he could just jump up to the highest tree branch he can find and look for the cliffs. He knows this, but the desire to do so doesn’t fill him. Instead, he becomes aware of the dryness in his throat. The berries do little to relieve it--in fact, they only aggravate it, and he frowns as he looks around. Surely there’s a source of water nearby. He doesn’t want to go back to the temples just yet.

He gives up walking to jump between tree branches instead, ears straining for any signs of running water among the rustling of leaves. He’s rewarded about half an hour later as he hears, along with more birdsongs, the faint sound of bubbling.

Seto finds the stream and cups clear water gratefully in his palms. The water’s fresh and clear, and he drinks a few more handfuls before standing up, refreshed.

“Where to go now..?”

His eyes follow the stream. He’s not sure what compels him to take off his shoes, but he does, and, holding his shoes in one hand, he wades into the water. The pebbles below his feet aren’t sharp, and he wriggles his toes, enjoying the feeling of water flowing between them before he begins walking again.

He walks downstream. It’s a natural road given to him, and he has little chance of getting (further) lost if he just goes back the other direction, right?

The river is bordered by trees for quite a while, and the small path that appears in them is so small that he almost doesn’t notice it at first.

He stops in his tracks, staring. It’s hard to distinguish from the foliage and grass, but there's a small gap in the trees that seem to continue in another direction. He steps out of the water and blasts air over his feet before stepping back into his shoes.

Seto approaches the path, and he focuses on one tree that borders it, frowning. In its trunk is a gash. It’s neat, and no signs of scuffle adorn the bark around it. It must have been made by a person, and with another bit of musing he theorizes that it might have been made by airbending. It’s clean and shallow enough, made in a single fluid motion rather than chipped at by a blade. .

Curiosity gnawing at him now, he walks down the path.

For a long while he wonders if there’s nothing, and he has to stop a couple times to determine where the path continues, if at all. He’s just about to tell himself that he got lost _again_ when he spots another slash on a tree, identical to the one he found before.

It’s not much long after he finds the house.

Perhaps “house” isn’t the best description--it looks more like a cottage, and so out of place. As far as he’s aware, the only civilization nearby is the Western Air Temple, which has its own unique architecture. This looks... A lot more like what he’s used to.

The thought comforts him, and he approaches quiet structure. The house is located in another large clearing, and he spots a well by it. Does someone live here?

That’s the only conclusion he can think of, and he hesitantly approaches the door.

Warnings ring in his head, screaming stranger danger, but he knocks anyway.

For a long moment, nothing. The minutes stretch by, and he thinks that there must be no one home, and he is just about to turn away when he hears the approaching sound of hesitant footsteps, and shadows appear at the bottom of the door.

“W-Who’s there?!”

The voice from behind the door is high pitched and, undoubtedly, _terrified._ He blinks at the tone and instinctively takes a step back.

It speaks again before he can respond.

“A-Are you from--ngh, no…” It fades, and then comes back, its fear increasing. “G-Go away! Don’t come in here!”

He manages to find his voice.

“U-Um! I’m, uh, um--I’m an airbender from the Western Air Temple?” he says.

There’s a pause at that.

“... Show me.”

The voice is so quiet this time, he isn’t quite sure that he heard it. “Huh?”

“Sh-Show…” A pause, then the voice gets a tad louder, though the quiver is still definitely there. “Show me th-that you’re, that you’re an airbender, then.”

He blinks, then nods. He can do that much.

“Okay. Step back, okay?”

The voice squeaks, and he hears its owner moving away from the door. He pulls his shoulder blades back and takes in a deep breath.

The wind moves along with his movements, down to his feet and through the crack beneath the door. He think he hears a faint gasp, but it’s lost among the wind breeze whistling by his ears.

He stops and stands straight up, looking at the door in apprehension.

A long silence follows.

“U-Um…” he starts, unsure.

Silence again.

Hesitantly, he puts his hand on the door handle. It gives way with surprisingly little resistant, and he opens the door.

Light floods in through the doorway, and someone cringes away from it. His eyes follow the movement to the girl standing quite a ways away from him, her arms held protectively in front of her chest as she stares at him.

The moment he meets her eyes, though, she makes a small noise and turns her head away. Her hands curl and uncurl, agitated, and she briefly covers her face with them before removing them. Even from here he can hear her shuddering breaths.

He’s never seen anyone like her. White hair falls down like foamy waves from her head, framing her face. She looks only a little bit older than him, maybe twelve if he had to guess.

The most curious thing about her, he decides, is her clothes. They’re orange and yellow--undoubtedly the attire of those from the Western Air Temple.

“Y-You’re…” she starts, but then she cuts herself off with a strangled noise, then swallows. She turns slowly to look back at him, trembling. “You’re not.. A monk…”

He pauses, then nods. “I’m not.”

Her eyes--they’re pink, a shade that he’s never seen in someone’s eyes before, and he can’t help but to stare because _no_ , her clothes were _not_ the most curious thing about her--become confused. “But… You’re from the Temple…?”

Seto nods, looking down at his clothes, which should be telling enough. “Um, yes. I’m… I guess you can say I’m just visiting? The Western Air Temple…”

“But you’re an airbender,” she says slowly. “You… Are you from the Eastern one then?”

He shakes his head. “No. I’m from the Earth Kingdom.”

Her confusion only grows at that, and she frowns at him. She’s not demanding that he goes away again, and to be honest, he doesn’t want to, so he glances behind him.

“May I close the door?”

Those pink eyes widen in alarm, and she shakes her head, white locks bouncing around her.

“N-No! I’m--” She raises her arms up protectively in front of her again, looking away as she trembles. “I’m--I--Did--Did they send you here!?” She winces at the volume of her own voice, and continues a little more quietly. “The--The monks?” The fact that she seems scared of them worries him.

“Um… no?” he offers, honest. To both his relief and dismay, his response causes her to panic more.

“Then--Then _why_ are you here?! How did--How did you find this place?!”

He raises his hands in front of him.

“H-Hey! It’s--It’s alright. I’m..” Seto searches for words, and his eyes widen slightly as he finds them. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

There’s a tense silence after, and her pale pink eyes are wide but wary as she stares at him.

He realizes that they’re glistening.

“I’m.. I’m sorry,” he starts, stepping back. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just exploring, really, and I found this place. I got really curious, so I decided to knock. I had no idea someone lived around here until now.”

He looks to the side. “I’ll leave, and I won’t tell anyone else about this place. Sorry for intruding.”

A silence follows. Taking it as acceptance at his departure, he turns around.

“W-Wait…!”

Seto looks back.

“Wh--What’s your name?” the girl asks. She’s still scared, it’s written all over her face, but her arms have lowered a little as she contemplates believing his words.

“I’m.. I’m Seto,” he answers.

She takes that information slowly, nodding. She takes her eyes off of him to look around them, at the small entryway of the cottage and to behind her.

“Are… Are you hungry?”

The question throws him off completely, and he blinks a few times as he processes it.

“U-Uh..”

His stomach, as if hearing the question, answers with a loud, long growl that ends in a whine. Seto stares at his own belly, aghast that his body would _embarrass_ him now of all times.

There’s an awkward pause--and then, a soft giggle. So soft that he’s not quite sure if he heard it, and the girl’s already turning her head away.

“Um.. O-Okay. You, you can close the door behind you. I.. I can… I can make you something, if you want.”

“O-Oh. Okay..”

Seto closes the door behind him and, after glancing at the girl’s bare feet, takes off his shoes.

“Um, wait, first,” he starts, and she turns her head towards him. Her eyes are still wary, he notes, but she waits.

“What’s your name…?’

She thinks over the question for a while, looking down at her hands. Seto can’t help it as he notices the emotions flickering over her face--fear, the one constant that he’s seen in her so far, worry, _sadness_.

“I’m……..” She hesitates again, and a morbid idea sprouts in his mind.

“Do you.. Not remember?”

She shakes her head, slowly. “No. It’s.. It’s just… Been a while,” she says. He guesses her thoughts: _A while since I last said it._

“I’m…” She repeats, then pauses to take in a deep breath. Her pink eyes lock with his golden ones. “My name is Mary.”

 

* * *

 

The second time Seto knocks, he hears a faint shriek from inside of the cottage before she comes to him. Again, she demands that he airbends, and he complies before she opens the door.

The third time, he’s brings gifts: some pastries made by the monks and nuns of the Air Temple. He announces himself this time with his knock, and, for the first time, he sees a smile grace her face as she sees the basket hanging off his arm.

A smile fits her a lot more than whatever looks of terror she gave him before, he thinks.

The fourth, she’s ready for his knock, and while she asks for him to prove himself as an airbender again, Mary also gives _him_ a tentative smile as she opens the door.

It becomes a regular thing. He knocks, she asks for their password, and he answers. He doesn’t visit her daily, but, as the visits become more frequent, he finds himself enjoying her company much more than that of the airbenders at the Temple.

She doesn’t talk much, not at first. Their first meal together had been almost completely silent. In fact, Mary spent most of the time either pushing the food on her plate (vegetables that she roasted over the small furnace in the house’s kitchen) or staring at him, though she averted her eyes whenever he tried catching her gaze.

As the days pass by, though, he finds himself with the courage to ask questions. After some time, she finds the courage to answer.

“So, um, are you an airbender, Mary?” he starts one day. They’re sitting in the dining area again, hot cups of tea nestled between their palms.

“Um…” She glances down, contemplating his question. She does that a lot, thinking over his words before making her own. “I.. I am.”

“Oh. Then, uh…” The upcoming question about her absence from the Air Temples is more than obvious, and a faint grimace passes over her face in apprehension. He decides to drop it.

“Do you practice it?” Seto asks instead.

She blinks once before looking up, thinking.

“No… Not really,” she admits. “I… I don’t really… Go outside.”

He nods. He hasn’t seen her leave the cottage once upon meeting her, but a part of him guessed--hoped?--that it was only because he was visiting her and she didn’t want to be a rude host.

“Then, um, how do you get food?” he asks.

“The… The monks. They deliver it, every two weeks.”

“Huh. Do you have a calendar here?”

She nods again. He sips at his tea, not sure if he should keep pressing her with questions. He decides not to, and, if the way the tension slowly leaves her shoulders and the worry between her eyebrows fade away were telling enough, she seems grateful for the silence. They finish their tea in peace.

* * *

 

He learns more about her over time.

First off, Mary likes to read. The monks send her books sometimes with their biweekly deliveries, taken from the libraries of the Temple and from around the world. She introduces him to her own library with shelves reaching from floor to ceiling and crammed with books and scrolls. He asks if she read all of them, and she sheepishly admits that no, she has not. _Not yet_ , he thinks she thinks.

She likes sweets. Upon seeing her first reaction to the pastries, he made it a task to make sure that he always took a few from the Temple’s dining area before going off to visit her. She reacts to them with happiness and sometimes even wonder when he brings one that she hasn’t tried before. He brought her wild berries once, and she delightedly made her own desserts with with them.

On that note, she’s good at cooking and cleaning. The house was dusty when he first entered it, causing him a sneeze a few times, but by his third visit he notices that it’s practically spotless. She blushes when he comments on it, nervously asking that it’s only normal to clean when you have guests, right?

He’s able to make further guesses about her, but he’s not sure what to do about them. She clearly doesn’t like talking about herself and the vast emptiness of her cottage.

But she’s so young.

“Mary,” he starts another day. They’re reading in the library, lounging on fluffy cushions. She looks up from her book about the Earth Kingdom.

“Yes, Seto?” she asks.

“I…” He fiddles with the scroll in his hands. It details the style of firebending from several centuries ago, and the paper feels ancient. “I… I was just wondering…”

He swallows and pushes himself to continue. “Why are you alone?”

The silence after is deafening, and Seto can already tell he made a mistake when she tucks her chin to her chest, not looking at him.

“I--Sorry,” he stammers. “I, I just meant--why are you living here alone, Mary?”

The rewording doesn’t help at all, and she curls in on herself, hair spilling past her shoulders to morph her into a fluffy accessory to the cushions around her.

He’s worried that she’s not going to answer at all when she peeps, sadly, “I wasn’t always alone.”

That… That makes sense, and he feels horrible for making her point out such an obvious fact.

“S-Sorry.” He looks down. “I… I guess what I’m asking, is, why don’t you come with me to the Air Temple?”

Well, shoot, he didn’t mean to phrase it like _that_. She stares at him with wide eyes and, to his unsurprise, shakes her head.

“I.. I can’t,” she stammers, looking down.

“Why?” he can’t help but to ask. “Why can’t you leave here?”

“I…” She fumbles with the pages, then drops the book on her lap to fiddle with her hair instead. Slender fingers tangle into white, disappearing. “I… I was told... not to leave here.”

“By the monks?” he asks, confused.

“N-No…” She looks down. “By my mother.”

He takes in her words, at the sorrow overwhelming her expression and body.

“But, Mary…”

She stands up abruptly at that, and he can tell that the conversation is over. She wipes at her eyes and looks away, sniffling.

“I-I think, I-I should…” Mary takes in a shuddering breath. “I-I’m going to go rest. Y-You can--You can, just, um, keep reading, Se-Seto.”

She leaves, and he’s left staring at the ceiling and wondering. Worrying.

Should he ask the monks about her? Surely they already know about her, if they deliver food to her. But _why_?

He silently apologizes to Mary for breaching her privacy before asking a nun about the cottage in the forest.

“Oh?” she lilts, tilting her head to the side. “I’ve never heard of anyone living around here.”

He apologizes and asks someone different, a much more older monk. He stares at him for a while with aged eyes before nodding and beckoning Seto to follow him deeper into the Temple.

Their footsteps click through the airy hallways.

“So you’ve met the Kozakuras?” the monk asks.

Seto pauses, then nods, deciding not to ask any of the questions that immediately arose in his mind.

“I see. We were wondering where you have been going lately, Seto,” he says. “But you clearly seemed more relaxed with your returns. I suppose you met Mary?”

He nods again, and the monk smiles.

“She’s about your age, right? To be honest, some of us were wondering if it’s due time for her to come to the Air Temple.”

“But--but why isn’t she here already?” he blurts, unable to help himself. “Why is she--” _by herself down there?_ He wants to ask, but another terrible thought comes to him, and he stops in his tracks.

His eyes widen, memories racing back to their first meeting. He remembers staring at that door, waiting for what felt like ages before receiving any sort of answer from Mary. She probably saw the shadows of his feet underneath the door and, as time passed, realized that he wasn’t just another monk to drop off food.

The realization nearly makes him breathless. She doesn't talk to them. They don’t know that she’s alone.

“Seto?” the monk asks, and he shakes his head.

“I--no, it’s nothing,” he says before taking in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, elder. Please, continue.”

The monk raises his eyebrows, but then he turns to the door they’re approaching and nods. “Here we are.”

“The Avatar Temple?” Seto asks in wonder, looking up at the huge door and the many contraptions adorning it. He’s never been in it. The monk nods again.

“It’s opened by airbending, you know? Why don’t you give it a try.” He gestures at the horned end of a pipe that sits on the door.

Seto hesitates, but at the monk’s encouragement he nods and gets into position.

A steady stream of air blasts into the pipe, creating a melody as spirals turn and unlock the doors, which swing open. Seto peers into the darkness and makes out an endless number of shadowy figures.

“What..?”

“Come in,” the monk says, stepping in. “These are all the past reincarnations of the Avatar.”

He disappears into the darkness, and Seto follows him The statues of the Avatars stare solemnly away from him, but he still can’t help but feel like he’s intruding something sacred, something that he’s not meant to be a part of. Nevertheless, he follows the monk into the heart of the room.

The monk stands in front of a statue much shorter than him, and Seto follows his gaze to the stone face that stares back with blank eyes.

“Avatar Azami,” Seto breathes when he recognizes her.

The monk nods. “Avatar Azami, the very first Avatar.”

Seto stares at her, confused at first as to why the monk is showing him her statue. He takes in her face, almost childlike despite the legends that depict her as an all powerful being, her large but hooded eyes that express no emotion, and then the absolute mess of hair that the stone somehow manages to convey as undoubtedly... fluffy.

His eyes widen.

“Wh-What...”

“The Kozakuras are direct descendants of Avatar Azami, and they are also airbenders,” the monk answers. “However, they wish to remain in solidary due to the weight Azami’s name carries with them. We elders respect this decision of theirs and provide them with necessities as requested.”

“As requested…” Seto repeats, looking down. The monk nods.

“By note, more precisely.”

Seto fidgets with his burning question, or rather declaration: _Mary’s alone! She’s alone in there! She needs help!_

But who was he to ask? She clearly wants her privacy, and, judging from the monk’s words, this was justified.

“So, you know about Mary?” he asks instead, his foot fidgeting as he swallows his apprehension.

The monk nods. “Shion had written to us that she had a daughter, quite some years ago. Mary, her name. That’s all we were told, but, to be honest, Seto, I was hoping that you had made a friend.”

Seto’s distracted by engraving the name of Mary’s mother into his head, and he looks up in confusion. “Huh?”

“I said, I was hoping you had made a friend, Seto.” His eyes twinkle. “Did you?”

Did he? Seto pauses.

“I…” He fumbles with his words, frowning in confusion as he looks down.

“I… I _want_ to be her friend,” Seto admits, and he nods at his words, realizing that he means them completely. “I want to be there for her.”

“Then, you should continue visiting her,” the monk replies with a warm smile. “Just don’t forget to come back for your daily exercises and meditation. I don’t want to tell your father that you’ve been slacking off.”

The last sentence is teasing, and Seto smiles bashfully. “Of course, elder. Thank you for sharing this information with me.”

“Not at all, Seto. I just trust that you keep this between us,” he says. “Oh, but I will have to tell the other elders about this, of course.”

Seto nods, not surprised. He fidgets, not really sure what to say now.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” the monk asks.

“Huh?”

The monk laughs. “I believe Nun Anin has just made several fresh batches of blueberry pie. Why don’t you take one before they’re all gone?”

“... Oh!” Seto breaks out into a smile that he can’t hide, and he nods. “I-I will! Thank you!”

The pie nearly burned his hands when he snatched it from the kitchens and had cooled considerably by the time he reached Mary’s cottage, but she’s delighted nonetheless, and he can’t help but to smile with her as they share it with excited conversation.

* * *

 “Mary, why don’t you airbend with me?”

They’re in the library again, but they’re now lying across long hammocks that span from wall to wall, held up by hooks that sat between the bookshelves. He hasn’t ever seen the hammocks before, but Mary had waved her arms around and they dropped down from the ceiling and fastened themselves with several whirlpools of wind.

It was his first time he saw her airbending, and he immediately noticed just how _natural_ it was for her. It’s only a small example, really, but she hadn’t even hesitated before making the motions, her stature relaxed. He’s never seen such silent confidence from the other kids when they airbend.

He gazes at her, just a few feet below him on her own hammock, and she looks back at him with wide eyes.

“B-But…” she starts, her eyes sliding to the door of the library beneath them.

“It can just be at the courtyard,” he reassures her. “You still go out there to get water, right?”

She hesitates before nodding, her hair bouncing alongside the hammock. “It’s… It’s been a very long time since I practiced airbending, but...”

“So let’s go!” Seto says, already jumping off his hammock.

“Wah!” Her hammock shakes with the small breeze he creates upon landing, and he watches as it sways as she struggles to balance--and then the hammock promptly flips over.

Her name gets caught in his throat as Mary, with only a faint gasp of surprise, simply floats down. Her face scrunches as she _glares_ at the hammock above her, as if it had tried dumping her onto the ground on purpose.

“... What?” she asks uncomfortably after a few seconds.

Seto shakes his head and looks away. “No-Nothing! Let’s go, Mary!”

He takes her hand. She flinches at the contact but allows him to lead her to the front door, where she pulls her hand away.

“I--I shouldn’t,” she whispers. “I shouldn’t…”

“Why not?” Seto asks, frowning. “Why did your mom tell you not to leave, Mary?”

She flinches again at the mention of her mother, and she glances to the side, sadness filling her eyes. “Because… Because it’s dangerous, Seto,” she finally answers. “The outside world is… Really, really dangerous.”

“Is that why she’s not here…?” he asks.

She blinks once, twice, and then strides past him and slams open the door.

“Mary…!” he exclaims, but she’s already walking through the doorway and into the courtyard. He hurries to follow after her, opening his mouth to ask what’s wrong, but as they turn past the side of the cottage and past the well, he spots it.

A piece of wood, carved to become a near perfect cylinder, stands in some dirt. It’s not the only one. As he looks around he sees that there are quite a few, all spaced out evenly from each other in the surprisingly large space behind her cottage. Grass and flowers form patches on the ground among the sticks, but they little to stop the morbid feeling in his throat.

This is a graveyard.

“... My mother’s here,” Mary says quietly, as she approaches the stick closest to them. She stops a few meters away from it, undoubtedly to not step over her mother’s remains, and then kneels. For a second he’s afraid that she’s crying, but her face is calm as she closes her eyes and gently clasps her hands in front of her.

He says nothing, just stands and stares, hoping that he’s not intruding on such a private moment.

After a few minutes, she slowly opens her eyes.

“...” He stays silent, but Mary doesn’t say anything. “Um…”

“I told her about you,” Mary says, looking back at him. Her eyes are so sad, of course they are, but there are no tears in them. “She… You know, it’s hard to remember her sometimes, but… I think she talked to me about going to the Air Temple one day. To practice. To get tattoos to match hers.”

He mulls over the information. Again, he feels like he can’t breathe. Such a strange feeling for an airbender.

“When.. When did she…?” he starts, but he finds himself unable to finish.

Thankfully, Mary understands. “Five years ago.”

Five years ago? Mary has been living by herself for _five years?_ When she’s, according to her calendar, only 12 years old?!

“H-How…?” he asks, and Mary misinterprets his question as a frown grows on her face.

“I… I don’t want to remember it, Seto,” she says, looking down. “I… She told me that the outside world is dangerous. I.. I didn’t believe her. Then the world… It proved how dangerous it really is.”

Her shoulders hunch, and her fingers grasp at strands of grass beneath her.

“N-No, I meant,” Seto swallows. “I meant, _how_ did you live by yourself for five years?!”

His aggravated tone causes her to look back at him, and her eyes widen. “Seto…?”

“Just… Weren’t you _lonely_ , Mary?” he chokes out. He’s trembling. “You’ve been here by yourself, living by yourself, not even talking to the monks--why didn’t you tell them?! They would have--They would have helped you, they…”

He didn’t realize that Mary had gotten up until she’s standing in front of him. Pale fingers reach out and touch his wet cheek.

“Don’t cry, Seto,” she murmurs.

He shakes his head. “I…” he takes a shuddering breath, then looks at her, determined. “I’m going to get you out of here, Mary.”

She blinks, drawing back her hand. “Huh?”

“Come with me to the Air Temple,” he says, not for the first time. “We--We can be friends there. You can--You can be with the others. The elders can teach you how to cook more dishes, and everyone can teach you airbending--it--it is, it _has_ to be better than this!”

But her eyes are widening at his suggestions, and she takes a few steps away from him, already slowly shaking her head.

“I… I don’t want to,” she breathes, glancing behind her, as if she’s going to run back into the cottage. He recognizes the fear in her eyes immediately.  “I don’t _want_ to, Seto.”

“Then,” Seto says, his determination solidifying.”Let me stay here with you.”

“Huh?”

“Let me stay here with you,” he repeats, then looks down. “I mean. I… I’d have to ask the elders, and I probably still need to go back to the Temples to, um, master airbending… But please, Mary.”

He sniffs quietly. “I don’t want you to be alone anymore.”

A long silence.

Those are pretty common between them.

“... Okay.”

His head snaps up as he stares at her, openmouthed, and she stares back with thinly pursed lips and watery eyes.

She’s not scared.

“Mary?”

“I said… Okay, Seto. I… I don't want to be alone any longer, too. It's so lonely here." She sighs, glancing down one before looking back at him, her gaze hardening. "Stay here with me.”

He almost can’t believe her words. Almost, except there’s no doubt on her face, no fear of betrayal. She trusts him. 

_She trusts him._

He blinks, quite unsure why the corners of his eyes are burning even more now, and then nods.

“I’ll… I’ll go talk to the elders tonight. I’ll ask them for permission--No, I’ll get their permission.” He nods again. “I’ll be here for you, Mary.”

She smiles despite the tears flowing down her face.

* * *

 The elders, surprisingly, give little resistance when he asks and presents them with Mary's letter.

 

 

> _Dear Western Air Temple Monks & Nuns, _
> 
> _Thank you so much for giving me food every other week. I like to make salads or sweets and and eat them with Seto. Seto’s really nice to me and he is my friend. I learn a lot from him and he is nice. Can Seto come stay with me?_
> 
> _Thank you_
> 
> _Mary Kozakura_
> 
> (at the bottom of the note is a scribble of what he thinks is two people, one with a mess of what he hopes is hair, holding what he guesses are carrots) 

Mary had spent more than an hour stressing over the contents of the letter, multiple crumpled up drafts forming piles around her as she shooed him away whenever he offered to help. He had read over her finalized words repeatedly on his way back while wondering if he should be worried.

“I think it’s a splendid idea,” one nun says, hands clapping together. “If the Kozakuras themselves give full permission, then I see no reason for resistance.”

“It might be better if someone accompanies him on his way there,” another muses. “The Kozakuras have been living in near isolation for centuries. Do they not want to stay in it anymore?”

Seto shifts uncomfortably. At Mary’s request, he kept his mouth shut about her mother’s death. She worried that if he told them then they would demand that she come live at the Air Temples--a very likely outcome, to be honest.

“Well, Mary is the one who welcomed Seto. Maybe this means that change is to come?” the elder Seto had talked to before offers, faintly smiling.

They discuss among themselves for a while more before addressing Seto with a unanimous decision:

He’s allowed to live with the Kozakuras now, but he is still expected to come back to the Air Temples every afternoon for several hours of airbending training and meditation. He is to fully take on the duty of delivering food and supplies to the Kozakuras. And, lastly, he should keep an eye out on his walks for any signs of people watching or following him and report any findings to the elders.

They even write it out for him. He scans over lines repeatedly. It’s almost everything he already has been doing, and he graciously accepts their terms.

“I believe you should also have some additional supplies,” one elder says, standing up. She disappears into an adjacent room before returning with two airbending staffs.

“My--My own staff?” Seto stammers.

The elder’s eyes crinkle with amusement. “To be honest, Seto, you were expected to keep the staff you were first given. We were all wondering why an extra had appeared in the storage.”

Seto flushes and takes the two staffs with a mumble of thanks. The elders happily send him off to the kitchens to get some more food and then, since it’s not like air nomads are known for keeping many possessions anyway, he’s off.

His travel to Mary’s cottage is much faster with the air staff, but he make sures to descend quite a bit aways before walking the rest, lest anyone had seen him gliding.

“Mary!” he calls once he sees the cottage, bursting into a run. He runs over to the door, his hand already raised in a fist, ready to knock.

The door opens before he even reaches it, and Mary’s there, smiling.

“Welcome home, Seto!”

He smiles back at her.

Home.

* * *

 “Isn’t it pretty?’

Mary hums as she crouches at the stream’s bank, reaching down to carefully dip her fingers into the water.

“It’s so cold!” she exclaims, but she doesn’t draw back her hand.

“It’s a lot colder than the well water, huh?” Seto agrees. He smiles as he watches her flick her fingers through the running water.

“It’s not bad,” she replies. Her voice is happy, and that makes him happy.

It’s been a couple months since he started living with Mary. There’s only one bedroom in the cottage, so at first he slept in the library among the cushions. It took him and Mary only a few days to sew together some sheets and stuff them with air bison fur that Seto brought back in multiple trips, making a fluffy futon, and soon enough he had made himself a nice nest in the library.

Besides sleeping and going to the Air Temple, he spent almost all his time with Mary, and after a few weeks they even began to have sleepovers in each other’s rooms. They’re fun but distracting; he and Mary tend to make stories or just talk for hours into the night, and he would end up waking up with the realization that he had less than an hour to get back to the Air Temple. That makes sleepovers sparse.

Life with Mary is fun. It’s fun when they had tea and fun when they read stories together in the library. It’s fun when they went outside the courtyard and practiced airbending together.

She at first refused to use the airbending staff, but she spent only a few minutes watching him glide around the clearing, low and below the trees, before standing up and excitedly asking him to teach her how to use one. She crashed, several times, but after each time she got up with a determined look on her face, and by evening she was laughing with him as they made dizzingy circles around their home.

As he had guessed, Mary’s an excellent Airbender. He taught her all the stances, all the movesets fresh from his lessons, and she picks them all up within moments. The gusts of wind she produces are actually stronger than his, just barely, and sometimes she even masters some techniques before he does. He calls her a prodigy, a word he learned in his library-now-bedroom, and she mumbles that he’s a good teacher.

He wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting, but life with Mary is also peaceful.

He made sure to keep his senses focused on his trips, wary for any foreigners or travelers, but he rarely saw them. The elders always told him ahead of time of any expected guests to the Air Temples, and the few travelers he met were friendly. He’d simply tell them he’s practicing his gliding and offer them transportation to the Air Temple. They would always graciously accept, and he’d glide back up to tell the elders to send down a sky bison.

Of course. Even though the last Avatar had passed away more than a decade ago, it was still a time of peace and balance in the world. There’s no reason for them to run into danger.

“Seto?”

He blinks and turns his head to Mary, who’s still crouching over the water, though she’s now pouting at him.

“Ah, sorry, Mary. Did you say something?” he asks.

“Mmhm.” She nods, and he notices that her the ends of her hair are getting wet from touching the ground. Maybe he should’ve tied her hair up before going out, but the last time he did that it took almost an hour and caused a lot of grief for both of them. “I asked, can you drink this?”

“Mmhm! The water’s really clean,” Seto says, and she doesn’t hesitate to form a cup with her palms.

He can’t help but to smile at the sight of her, surrounded by nature. He never pushed her to go outside, but he went on walks every morning, as soon as he woke up, to get some fresh air. She had woken up to find the cottage empty one too many times, he supposed, and instead of asking him to stay she had decided to try to wake up early and go with him.

Try, keyword. Sometimes she simply overslept--she’s a heavy sleeper, he found out pretty quickly, and she enjoyed sleeping well into or past the morning. She had glared at him for the first time on his third morning after moving in, when he tried waking her up for some breakfast. Her icy gaze had sent chills down his spine, freezing him in place before she mumbled something incoherent and buried her face back into the pillows. He never tried again.

Other times, she’s just scared. At first she would only follow him to edge of the clearing surrounding her cottage and then wave goodbye, trying to hide her fear with a smile as he assured her that he’d be back soon.

But time marches on, and so did Mary. Today marks the farthest she’s ever gone from the cottage, to the stream where he had first found the path to her.

“This water tastes really good,” Mary comments. She separates her hands to dip a finger into the water again, swirling it thoughtfully. “I didn’t know water can be different! It feels a lot…. Fresher! Fresher’s the word, right, Seto?”

“Mmmhm, I think that’s right,” he agrees. She smiles faintly, but her eyes are focused a few feet ahead of her, distant.

“Seto…” she says, and he blinks at the softness of her voice.

“Yes, Mary?”

“I..” She continues swirling the water. “I.. I was always scared of people, Seto. The.. The day my mother died, I… I never wanted to see another person again. And I didn’t. Not until you arrived.”

Seto stares at her. Her voice is so soft, almost hard to hear over the running and swirling water.

“When I first saw you, I was so scared… I wanted you to leave.”

… Huh?

“I sometimes wonder what would have happened if you had left? Like I told you to?”

His eyes drop downward and then widen.

“But.. But you didn’t. And. And I…”

The water’s spinning.

“I… I just wanted to say.. Thank--”

“Ma-Mary?!”

“Huh?” She freezes at the alarm in his voice. “Wh-What?”

He blinks, and it’s gone, but he can’t deny what he just saw.

“Mary, you… You can waterbend?”

As if shocked, she immediately draws her hand from the water--but the crystalline liquid follows her fingertips, forming an long arch that cuts through the air.

Mary shrieks, loudly, shaking her wrist, and the water convulses briefly before it splatters into the pebbles below their feet.

For a long moment they stare at each other. Mary holds her hand to her chest, breathing heavily, trembling, her eyes wide with that same fear that she held the first day she met him. But he can’t focus on that, not right now, no, when--

“Mary, you’re the Avatar?”

**Author's Note:**

> lmao that was supposed to be a twist but if anyone here follows my avatar au on tumblr then you should've already known this HAHAHAHA. That being said, you can find the designs of all the main cast in this AU (and most of their rough backstories, which I will write further about) here:
> 
> https://yoomster.tumblr.com/tagged/kagepro+avatar+au/chrono


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